Arizona coach pleased with bowl eligibility but wants more

Rich Rodriguez’s team earned bowl eligibility with a win last Saturday over Colorado, which is something many felt would not happen in his first year with the school.

The coach, as a guest of Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf Wednesday, said there’s plenty of good that comes with playing that extra game.

“If you’re in a bowl it’s a reward for the seniors and the players, and you want them to be able to play in the postseason,” the coach said of the benefit. “And two, from a coaching standpoint, in order to develop our players and continue this process you get a couple more weeks of practice, and that’s invaluable.”

Rodriguez went on to say while reaching a bowl is always a goal entering a season, it was not exactly the goal he and his staff went in with in year one.

“We didn’t really talk about it because I always try to set it higher than that,” Rodriguez said of simply making a bowl game. “We set the goal of winning the league each and every year.

“Sometimes it’s obviously a lot tougher of a goal to reach than hopefully it’s going to be in the future, but we wanted to be in the postseason, that goes without saying.”

The Wildcats are currently 6-4 with two games remaining. They’re not exactly guaranteed to play in a bowl game, but odds are good they will. However, a couple more wins would elevate the team’s status and put them in a better game.

“Now that we’ve got six, now you kind of climb the bowl ladder with every win you get after this, so that’s kind of been our motivation,” he said, before turning his attention to his team’s next opponent, Utah. “We’ve got such a big, physical team going up there in Utah and that environment.

“We’re allowed to travel with 70, I hope I can get 40 or 50 to jump on the plane with me.”